I did a search on TSC for drag harrow. Which one would make sense for a 230 ft x 65 ft backyard bluestone ring? I have been using a rock rake up till now and it leaves grooves in the sand. Farrier says its time to buy a good drag. We are towing with a garden tractor (not a full size tractor).
Thanks!
FYI my husband says the rock rake is sufficient with something to smooth it out afterwards. But would that just compress it again?
https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/search/drag%20harrow
A concern with a rock rake is getting too deep into the bluestone and hitting the base.
Any of those harrows will do - tines down to break up clumps, tines up to smooth. Smoothing with one of those won’t compress.
The trouble with bluestone is that if it gets compacted (e.g. hard rain and then allowed to dry), a lighter weight drag like you’ve linked may not be capable of breaking it up, at least not until the next rain.
If you’re not hitting the base with your rock rake it might still be a good tool to keep around in case you do end up with the bluestone compacting. Or, for example, use the rock rake and then follow it with a lighter harrow to remove the grooves. I have considered rigging up a double system to smooth the grooves out after the drag (e.g. a flat blade), but haven’t actually done it.
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I have this 6’x8’ one or something that looks exactly like it: https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/pr…t?cm_vc=-10005. I used to drag my sand and rubber arena with it until I bought a dedicated arena drag in part because it was a big chore to flip the harrow (tines down for the arena, tines up for the pasture). For an ATV you might need the smaller 4’x4’ one. It’s quite heavy duty but I’m not sure it would do much to compacted bluestone, even with the tines down.
What do you mean by grooves? Is the footing compacted so that your current drag is just making grooves in the footing and leaving everything else hard? If so, you might need more than an ATV and a harrow to fix that unfortunately.
This is what I use in my bluestone ring. What helps is that I drag the arena ALL THE TIME, and especially look for that magic time after rain when the bluestone is starting to dry, but not all the way dry. This seems to be the best time to get the right amount of “loft” in the footing. Every once in a while, I need to put a heavy weight on top of it to get deep into the base. This has worked for me for about 10 years, in an older arena with some drainage issues. I’d love to have the footing scraped and the base releveled, but that isn’t in the cards for a while.
